Sarah the Socialist

Palin backed Alaskan windfall-profits tax

In fact, Palin’s plan looks similar in concept to Barack Obama’s plan. The state gave Alaskans $1200 checks from oil revenues as a one-time bonus to pay for increased fuel prices, a move Palin pushed. That echoes the Obama plan to send one-time rebates to taxpayers, funded by similar levies on oil companies.

It's only "socialism" if the Democrats do it?

Palinomics: Alaska now has some of the highest resource taxes in the world. Alaska’s oil tax revenues are expected to be about $10 billion in 2008.
...
Palin approved gas tax relief for Alaskans, and paid every resident $1,200 to help ease their fuel-price burden.

Alaska 1st, Ariz. last in pork spending
Did McCain "vet" Palin at ALL? Flip flop McCain is against windfall tax profits and redistribution of wealth. Palin has been all for windfall tax profits and redistribution of wealth-for Alaskans. They are polar opposites on Earmarks

Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year. By comparison, Alaska — with roughly a tenth of Arizona's population — is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks.

To the detriment of some of his constituents and to stubbornly make his point, McCain didn't ask for funding for many programs including the health hazard that is Nogales, Arizona; ironically, Senator Kyl (R-AZ) fellow anti-earmarker had to "reach across the aisle" instead to get federal assistance for Nogales.


Windfall tax lets Alaska rake in billions from Big Oil

Democrat Barack Obama supports a national windfall-profits tax, while Republican John McCain opposes it.

Alaska thanks you

It's a fact: For every dollar we Alaskans pay in at-the-pump gas taxes, we get $6.60 back, thanks to you generous, unwitting donors.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, that breaks down to $1,150 for every Alaskan in "earmark" funding for in-state projects alone, 25 times what the average American garners for his or her home state.

Palin record questioned by many in energy industry

One of Palin’s first acts as governor was to support additional taxation of the oil industry, an idea supported by her predecessor, former Gov.Murkowski. Murkowski wanted to use the additional income to finance the natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Canada at an estimated cost of $20 billion. Palin’s new tax will refund the money to “deserving” Alaskans.

Palin’s support of a new tax on the oil industry is patterned after the so-called Windfall Profits Tax. Ironically, her political partner, Sen. John McCain, has opposed such tax policies, but Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, supports a similar tax that would generate enough money to give $1,000 back to “deserving” citizens.

Sarah gets to decide who is "deserving" and who isn't.


Palin's earmark requests: more per person than any other state

Just this year, she sent to Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million — more, per person, than any other state.

Her presidential running mate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., does not sponsor earmarks, calling the practice of doling out favors, often with scant oversight, "disgraceful."
Some of Palin's requests...$499,900 to assess halibut harvesting...lighting village airports in the Alaskan bush, where small planes and gravel runways may be the primary link to the outside world.

Palin's requests to Congress came at a time of huge federal deficits, while Alaska state revenue was soaring due to rising oil prices and a major tax increase on oil production that Palin signed into law in late 2007.

As a result, Alaska this year was in such a money-flushed condition — with no state income tax or sales tax and total state revenues of $10 billion, double the previous year's — that Palin gained legislative approval for $1,200 cash payments to every Alaskan.

In addition, each Alaska resident gets an annual dividend check, about $2,000 this year, from Alaska's oil-wealth savings account, known as the Permanent Fund, now fattened to more than $35 billion.

Alaska received more than any other state for earmarks. Palin, with a HUGE budget, turned around and redistributed the wealth to her constituents who pay NO state income taxes and NO sales taxes. In order to offset being a Socialist and the EARMARK QUEEN, she displayed her "Christian" and GOP credentials by CUTTING funding for unwed pregnant teens thereby pleasing her base of fellow hypocritical Creationists. It's only "wealth redistribution" and/or "Socialism" if it's done by a Democrat since Sarah determines who is "deserving" based upon their religion. Her enormously swollen budget makes the cuts to unwed teens even more repugnant. Do as we say, not as we do. She was pregnant out of wedlock as is one of her daughters. Perhaps she should have increased biology and physiology education funding.

Alaska has a multibillion-dollar budget surplus while here in California, the most populous state, we have a shortfall and pay taxes up the wazoo.
Which states have no personal income tax?

Seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Two others, New Hampshire and Tennessee, tax only dividend and interest income.

Alaska is the only state that does not collect state sales tax or levy an individual income tax.
Oil, baby, oil. Alaska's government primarily depends on oil revenue, hence Palin's desire to drill, baby, drill.

Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group.

McCain hailed Palin as a politician "with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies -- someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past, someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money."
...
"As governor, I've stood up to the old politics-as-usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol'-boy network," she said Friday.
...
As mayor of Wasilla, however, Palin oversaw the hiring of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Alaska's most senior Republicans: Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, who was indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts. The Wasilla account was handled by the former chief of staff to Stevens, Steven W. Silver, who is a partner in the firm.

Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 on a campaign theme of "a time for change." According to a review of congressional spending by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, Wasilla did not receive any federal earmarks in the first few years of Palin's tenure.

Senate records show that Silver's firm began working for Palin in early 2000, just as federal money began flowing.
...
"She certainly wasn't shy about putting the old-boy network to use to bring home millions of dollars," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "She's a little more savvy to the ways of Washington than she's let on."

So the "change/reform" she brought to Alaska was to increase funding for Washington lobbyists to get even more earmarks and pork barrel dollars from the rest of us. Plus she kept the money for the "bridge to nowhere" that she was FOR, money out of OUR US Treasury and pockets. That's certainly not putting "Country First" as she claims. She's screwed the rest of us out of tax money WE paid to maintain our own crumbling infrastructures and redistributed it to Alaskans. All in direct opposition to McCain's claimed goals. His "vetting" team leaves a lot to be desired. They have saddled him with a corrupt woman whose only appeal is to fellow right wing theocratic nutcases who believe in Creationism.